Sunday, March 29, 2009 Courtesy of Todd Casey

I have been fishing the Lower Laguna Madre from Port Mansfield to South Bay since I was able to hold a fishing rod. I remember windy days when my dad and I would head out of Port Mansfield in the boat named "Old Blue" and spend the whole day fishing. My face would be covered with globs of sunscreen and an oversized mesh/foam cap that my dad would make me wear. Back then all we threw was Kelly Wigglers, double hooked red worms and gold spoons. We would usually catch a lot of fish and spend the evening driving back home a little sunburned and tired, but happy from a day on the bay. Nothing much has changed since then. I am 32 years old now. I don't use Kelly Wigglers anymore, but if I could find them in a tackle shop I would buy the whole rack. If I could find the stress-free days of fishing with my dad like I did back then, I would never leave the boat. If I could see the sunsets I saw when I was 5 years old, setting through the fences of the King Ranch on the way home I would soak up every moment of it.
Those stress-free days, those sunsets through the King Ranch wire, the Kelly Wigglers...they are all still there. I just need to focus on them. Sometimes, we get so caught up in everything else in our lives that we forget to stop and just go to the beach.
The fishing here in Padre is awesome right now. This is the best time to hit the water. The water is warming up and everything is spawning and full of life. The weather this time of year can be tricky, but aside from that, if you get a chance to get away, this is the time to do a little fishing. My favorite thing about fishing this time of year is the big trout. They are here and stacked up in certain places. The last few days have been full of big trout action. I have had numerous trout from 28 to 30 inches in the boat this past week. This is the time of year when an angler can get lucky and catch the trout of a lifetime.
Most of the trophy trout I have been catching have been in shallow water. The water is in it's transition period right now. The water is trying to warm up as a whole, but right now the shallow water (18 inches or less) is the warmest water. These big trout, which are spawning are stacking up in these areas and when the weather and timing is right, they will explode on top water baits. I have been catching most of them in the shallow water of the Long Bar, the spoils around marker 77 and the flats around the Texaco spoils near Lisa's cove and Holly Beach. I have been using mainly Super Spook top waters...black with a yellow head. We have also caught a few on corky's, but most of the time it is too shallow to work them.
Overall, the fishing is great right now. Plenty of fat redfish in the flats around the gaswells and three islands. Huge trout in the shallows. Keeper trout in the channel. It is just a great time to be out on the water.